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The First Goddess - The Sea Review "The First Goddess" "Humans seek design and agency in everything. When we see random patterns, we interpret them in anthropomorphic terms. We see faces in rock formations, in the branches of trees and in clouds. Whenever we encounter something we do not understand our first reaction is to personalise it, to make it like us so that we can conceptualise it. We see causality in random events and constantly ascribe a sense of agency to the world around us. This is the root of the earliest belief system we know of, animism, which holds that everything – and depending on the culture this may include completely inanimate objects like rocks and mountains – contains a spirit force that is a form of will that can be helpful or malign, benevolent or dangerous, depending on how we behave towards it." ~ Quote from Why Men Made God, Page 2. This beautiful image was sent to us by a reader without attribution. If you are the creator of this image, please contact us so we can give credit appropriately. Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise Why the brain believes something is real when it is not. by Michael Shermer, November 2008, Scientific American. Shermer says, "...our brains are belief engines: evolved pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature. Sometimes A really is connected to B; sometimes it is not. When it is, we have learned something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that aid in survival and reproduction. We are the ancestors of those most successful at finding patterns. This process is called association learning, and it is fundamental to all animal behavior..." Read the article... Reader Pat Haney was inspired to create her impression of "The First Goddess" on an African vista background. Thank you Pat! Image copyright © Pat Haney. Used here with permission.

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